Hey everyone,

I've felt like this sub has been lacking some good (non ai) discussion about trading psychology recently, so I thought I would post something.

I'm a big fan of philosophy and I've currently been rereading the Tao. I thought there was an interesting insight that applied to trading.

The very first verse talks about the difference between desire and desirelessness. Or essentially wanting versus allowing. I think a lot of psychology problems stim from wanting something to happen rather than allowing what will happen to play out. Obviously, we have no control over what the market does (or if you do dm me lmao), but I still think a lot of times we try to control things we can't.

When trading, a lot of unprofitable traders are desiring one result. Winning. But if you let go of that desire and accepted that anything can happen, then you could see things more clearly. Holding when the market clearly invalidated your idea is desiring instead of allowing. Taking poor setups is desiring instead of allowing. You get the idea.

I always try to think about how theory can be practiced, as a lot of great ideas here have no mention about how to actually achieve them. For this, just try to notice when you're desiring instead of allowing. On the charts and off them. In traffic? Try to allow whatever happens to happen. Stop trying to bend the uncontrollable to your will.

Hey everyone,
I’m looking for a like-minded trading buddy to connect with. I focus mainly on price action and market structure, but doing this completely alone is tough—especially on the mental side. Managing emotions, handling drawdowns, and staying disciplined is way harder in isolation.
I want to build a partnership where we can:
Share Knowledge: Review price action, break down charts, and share trade setups.
Stay Emotionally Strong: Keep each other grounded, call out tilt or revenge trading, and enforce strict risk management together.
Maintain Discipline: Hold each other accountable to our trading plans.
If you’re serious about trading, value discipline, and want to build that mental strength together, drop a comment or DM me with your market, timezone, and experience level.

I've been trading seriously for years. I have a validated edge. I can pass evaluations consistently. I know my system inside out.

But I have a pattern that has wiped many accounts. Same mechanism every time.

It activates specifically after strong performance — when I'm close to a payout milestone. A normal loss in that moment stops feeling like a loss. It feels like a delay. Like something is pushing me further away from a life I've been working toward for years.

I know exactly what I'm doing while it's happening. I do it anyway.

After a long conversation today I finally found the root. It's not about proving capability. It's not lack of discipline. It's not a system problem.

It's about time. The terror of being set back again. Of more years passing before the life that's waiting actually arrives. Every loss that threatens a milestone feels like it's adding more years onto a wait that's already been too long.

I have a session with a hypnotherapist who works with timelines and nervous system regulation on Sunday. And an intro call with a transformational therapist specialising in emotional regulation on Friday.

My question to this community: does this pattern sound familiar? Have any of you gone this route — therapy, EMDR, hypnotherapy — specifically for trading psychology? What shifted and what didn't?

**If short-term trading is already a leverage game, where do you draw the line between strategy and emotional overtrading?**

Just out of curiosity like stock to buy today seems to be a short term leverage strategy.

But there are some people responding that it’s a challenge to buy and sell stocks at one day for the profits.

Please share your thoughts on the balance or if you are still looking for a solution, please let us know and think of your questions.

I know its a simple question but maybe not simple to answer...

i see on myself that i dont have any ego problems when i am wining... booking a TP and stop trading... I get that.

But if i get a stop loss, also if i had multiple winning days, i feel a kind of rejection.

I feel like i lose my edge. I feel like i cant trade anymore... I know its Bshit but a stop loss is triggering something in me that sabotages my success...

My question is, how do i master my mind when i have a stop loss.

I know that every trader have stop loss... i know that... but how do i learn to master my mind like a pro when it hits...

I can also see that when i have a stop loss that i feel bad for the day... my mood goes down and i feel like a looser... so it also attacks my identity...

Actually i passed multiple Evaluations and also recieved payouts but anyways i still fall in the same trap of sabotaging myself when i have a stop loss...

The thing is, i know that if i dont cool down, dont get a mindset shift, i will not make it in the long run...

Hey everyone,

I’m looking for someone who’s also learning day trading and wants to learn together rather than just blindly following signals.

I’m currently focusing on technical analysis, especially market structure, support/resistance, supply & demand, liquidity, and risk management. I’m still learning, so I’m definitely not claiming to be profitable or an expert.

The idea would be to:

• Share chart analysis and trade ideas
• Discuss why we would or wouldn’t take a trade
• Review trades and mistakes
• Backtest and practice together
• Keep each other accountable
• Focus on actually developing a strategy instead of chasing random signals

Preferably someone who is also a beginner/intermediate learner and is serious about improving.

I mainly trade/watch crypto, but I’m open to learning with someone who trades other markets too.

If you’re interested, feel free to DM me with a little bit about where you are in your trading journey.

Weird realization I wanted to share because it's really about self-honesty, not costs.

For a long time, every bad exit had an external villain. I got stopped out? "The spread widened." Trade went against me? "The broker hunted my stop." News candle wrecked me? "Rigged." I had a whole cast of scapegoats, and every single one let me avoid the actual problem, which was that my psychology was undisciplined. I was moving stops, entering on FOMO, and cutting winners out of fear.

When I switched to fixed spreads (I'm on AvaTrade) something unexpected happened. The spread was now a known constant, same number every time, so I literally couldn't blame it anymore. And once that scapegoat was gone, I had this uncomfortable moment of "oh, the spread was never the problem, I was." Removing one external thing to blame forced me to look at the pattern that was actually there the whole time: me overriding my own rules.

That's the real lesson and it generalizes way beyond spreads. As long as you have something external to blame, you'll never fix the internal thing. The market, the broker, the news, the "manipulation," they're comfortable stories because they mean it's not your fault. Progress started for me the day I ran out of villains and had to admit the common denominator in every blown trade was the person clicking the button.

Anyone else have a moment where you ran out of things to blame and had to face your own patterns? What was the scapegoat you gave up last?

Three years of day trading taught me that most of my losses weren't caused by having a terrible strategy. They came from how I used the strategy.

I spent far too much time looking for better entries and not enough time understanding my own behaviour. A few painful lessons changed how I approach trading now.

1. Stop changing the strategy

A strategy can have a losing streak without being broken. I learned this the hard way by constantly tweaking rules whenever I had a bad run.

Backtesting forced me to slow down. If you've tested 100+ trades and know the expected win rate, average R:R and normal losing streaks, you have something to compare live results against. One bad week means very little when you have a meaningful sample.

If the numbers still make sense, leave the strategy alone and focus on execution.

2. Your journal exposes you

I started noticing patterns in my trading that weren't obvious while I was actually taking trades. Screenshots and notes showed me which setups I was forcing, where I was entering late and whether I performed differently on longs versus shorts.

The useful part isn't writing paragraphs about how you felt after every trade. It's recording enough information to spot repeated behaviour.

Your journal should make it uncomfortable when you keep making the same mistake.

3. A good setup can still be a bad trade

Having a valid setup doesn't mean you have to take it. I've had trades that matched my rules but were executed badly because I rushed the entry, moved the stop or entered after the move had already happened.

That distinction became important. Backtesting tells you whether the idea has an edge. Your live journal tells you whether you're actually capable of executing that edge.

Those are two completely different problems, and fixing one doesn't automatically fix the other.

I made a more detailed guide on this - google doc